New Reports: "may The Force Not Be With You"
Published by MAC on 2006-05-24
New reports: "May the force NOT be with you!"
24th May 2006
Indigenous peoples, United Nations Global Compact
As the United Nations prepares to publish a report on the contribution which extractive industries make towards global human rights violations, so the UN's special representative on the issue, John Ruggie, is accused of pandering too much to the mining companies.
Readers of this website will hardly need convincing that mining in many countries is inextricably linked to "extra legal" force used against project objectors and some who support them. Slowly - too slowly? - the world's most respected human rights organisation is recognising this reality.
Below we reprint the small number of references to mining in Amnesty International's latest annual report, covering events in 2005. Strangely, there seem to be no references to headline accusations such as those relating to Anvil Mining's alleged cooperation in a massacre with the DRCongo army; Freeport Tinto's backing of the military in West Papua; or the murder, last November, of two unarmed demonstrators against UK-based Monterrico Metal's gold project in Peru.